


got to go

by pvwork



Category: Selfie (TV)
Genre: Cats, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-07
Updated: 2014-12-07
Packaged: 2018-02-28 11:39:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2731100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pvwork/pseuds/pvwork
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>I need to go purchase a cat. And then feed it</i> -Henry Higgs</p>
            </blockquote>





	got to go

**Author's Note:**

> Potential spoilers for Ep. 9

Henry Higgs goes down that elevator, all the way down to the ground floor, and then proceeds to walk through the lobby of KinderKare Pharma. He then walks out the front door at a properly, gentleman-like gate, not too fast, not too slow, just the right kind of speed to be walking away from Eliza Dooley and her smooth-as-a-baby's-butt skin. 

She certainly didn't need a phone screen to glow, just the sodium bulb tint of the hallway lighting was enough to make her look like a someone had doused her in a million dabs of diaper cream. 

It is at this point on his perilous journey of this particular train of thought that Henry walks down to street level, makes a few left turns and a right turn, and walks into an still open animal shelter. 

They open late on Thursdays because they cut their hours short on weekends. 

"Hello," Henry says, a standard greeting. He follows it up with a social nicety. "How are you?" 

"I'm fine," says the receptionist, and offers Henry a tired smile for his efforts. The receptionist is not fine, probably tired from a day of greeting potential pet adopters only to be harassed and harangued at the front desk and all because the receptionist had chosen to work for a non-profit animal shelter. 

Henry is feeling surprisingly empathetic for the receptionist at the moment. 

"How can I help you today?" the receptionist asks. 

"I'd like to adopt a cat."

"Great, let me just show you who we have, so that you can pick the cat that you think is the best fit for your lifestyle. Are you thinking indoors or outdoors? Low or high activity?"

Henry takes a brief moment to consider the state of his lazy boy leather recliners and his redwood hardwood floors. He thinks about a small animal creature weaving through his legs, tail curling up and up and up. A tabby cat. Ginger fur. 

"Both? Everything?" 

The fall of Eliza's hair and the way she'd smiled at him, soft, forgiving, like she's half-joking but mostly serious. The red blinking light of the 'close door' button. 

Eliza was certainly something to behold. 

"Uh," says the receptionist, "why don't you see some of the cats we have and you decide what kind of cat you're looking for." 

"Right. Thanks." 

Henry signs the papers after twenty minutes, and then heads to Petco and buys more pet supplies than strictly necessary, but a boy scout is always prepared and the Marines are always faithful. So. 

So Henry buys more supplies than he needs and heads home with a new cat and dry cat food because, according to the receptionist, Luna loves carbs. 

"Welcome home," Henry says and Luna makes a little noise at the back of her throat and wanders out of the pet carrier regally, tail held up and up and up and curled a bit curiously at the tip as she pads into his house. Her claws flex and click against his floor. 

As impulse buys go, this is his number one most impulsive buy ever. He wonders how Julia would react. Luna has all her shots but he needs to schedule a vet appointment some time next month just to check. He wonders if Julia knows any vets that reside among her plethora of MPHD holding acquaintances.

"I hope you like it here," Henry says to Luna. Who only paws at the ground and begins to circle the confines of her new abode. She's scouting out the area and Henry finds himself in awe of her innate animal curiosity and grace.

Julia is. Julia is the way smooth coffee goes down. Bitter but so, so good and useful, knowing and familiar, and Eliza is none of those things and these two women are not the same. Whereas Henry sees himself well reflected in Julia, like she's got every edge matched up to his, he can't imagine that level of compromise with Eliza. Eliza would want to fill the silence, would want to go out and be seen, and Henry. 

Henry wants that too sometimes. He remembers wanting that, but not any more. Mostly. 

He wonders if Julia has ever wanted those things because sometimes he thinks she is the ideal, an ideal he strives to achieve. He can't ever fully understand what it is that she wants because like a slowly dissolving lozenge, once you get past that candy coated lozenge-y outer shell, you find that the middle bit tends to be crunchy and thin, not enough menthol, not enough sugar, because the middle is the starting point and that's how a lozenge is built, spun sugar wrapped over and over like any other candy; Henry is the lozenge in this metaphor, although now he's not sure why he is. 

All he does know is that he bought a cat, and that Eliza's eyes when she'd said the words, "A bit of you and a bit of me" while she had been wearing his coat had made his heart race in a wildly different way from the way Wren jumping out of the shadows of his office had made his heart pound.

Luna makes a noise as she rushes her food dish. Henry takes a seat on his soon-to-be-ruined leather recliner with a glass of tap water and ruminates about all the women in his life. He has so many important women in his life and for all that he struggles, he truly does want to do right by each and every one of them.

"I'm glad you're here," Henry tells Luna.

**Author's Note:**

> i was procrastinating and i needed to do this. that line gives me life.


End file.
